I don't think it's anything to do with Africa - it's more just the fact that there are ignorant journalists and anti hunters everywhere...... personally, I think the cure is for us to use them for Leopard bait....... wherever they are!

Corruption is a different matter - it happens in every culture, including western cultures.... but admittedly, it is more open and more accepted in Africa......

I know a big tom leopard you could use them on. Seems that a picture of it was posted on AR during the last couple of days.

Mark,
No problem, one of the good thing of this forums is that we can help to keep each other informed.

Thanks to everybody who dropped a note to the newspaper.

I think one of the biggest short comings we as hunters have is not to speak up enough for our passion. We must work a lot harder to defend our love and passion for nature and hunting. The more we are in the news with good articles on hunting and countering uninformed articles, the more ground we will win.

I got a email from the PA to the editor of the Pretoria News. They asked for my details before they can publish my reply to the article.

Did anybody else who wrote to them got a similar request?

It's pathetic how ignorant public "servants" are. They should spend some time with economist Arthur Laffer, but it probably wouldn't matter.

Jaco: What "details" did they ask for or were interested in?

My name, address and telephone number. No newspaper in RSA will publish a letter unless they can positively identify you. They will only publish your name or your alias if you do not want to make your name public. I did not supply a alias, I say what I believe in.

Here is a direct link to the article:
http://www.pretorianews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3309775
IMHO this is a bit more serious, as this piece is an Editorial and not a small article written by a rookie.
Basically, it's poor research and prejudice... to say the least.

Kind of like the place we hunt in south Texas. Used to be that pigs were $100. The owner decided he was leaving money on the table since some of the other land owners had gone up to 400. He went to 400. The year they were $100 they sold 18 pigs to hunters for 1800. The next year they sold no pigs for $0. So did the land owner leave money on the table with pigs at 100 or 400?

I also wrote to the newspaper.

African hunting is getting dearer all the time. I was looking the other day at what the rates and fees were 10 years ago, and we have had a lot of hunting inflation. Witness what is happening with the prices of today´s lion hunts...

Whether taxes or price hikes or similar hunting inflationary hikes will stick, is in the end mostly a matter of supply and demand...

Considering the fact that few youngsters are chosing to hunt, that airlines make it harder everytime to transport rifles, that canned hunting will bring about more regulation, that CITES is a lagging bureaucracy, that bunny-huggers are getting richer everytime and are buying hunting concessions, and that science may one day make hunting as a population control tool obsolete, we are slowly running out of hunting time...

So, my advice is don´t leave a hunt for tomorrow if you can do the hunt today.

Antonio